PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- This is the new book from the award winning writer of Fever of Animals. There are three different stories – one taking place in present-day Melbourne, the second set in India with the Bhagwan Rajneesh, and third set in the not-too-distant future. The stories are linked: a man searches for answers in explaining his father’s suicide; the father joins the Bhagwan ashram searching for answers; and a daughter reaches out to her father. Allinson has a wonderful way of keeping the reader engaged, but also making us work. There are no easy answers here — questions posed always seem just out of reach of being reconciled by the character asking them. Both political and personal, this makes Allinson a writer to keep an eye on. Greg Waldron
'A parent's love for a child, you probably know this yourself, it's pretty bottomless. It goes down into the guts of the world. But a child's love for a parent is different. It goes up. It's more ethereal. It's not quite present on the earth.'
In present-day Melbourne, a man attempts to piece together the mystery of his father's apparent suicide as his young family slowly implodes. At the ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, in 1976, a man searching for salvation must confront his capacity for violence and darkness. And in a not-too-distant future, a woman with a life-altering decision to make travels through a climate-ravaged landscape to visit her estranged father.
In Moonland is a portrait of three generations, each grappling with their own mortality. Spanning the wild idealism of the 70s through to the fragile hope of the future, it is a novel about the struggle for transcendence and the reverberating effects of family bonds. This long-awaited second outing from Miles Allinson, the multi-award-winning author of Fever of Animals, will affirm his reputation as one of Australia's most interesting contemporary fiction writers, and urge us to see our own political and environmental reality in a new light.
'A joy to read, with its relaxed authority of tone, its complex emotional depths, and its curious, daring beauty.' Helen Garner
'A story of our hearts, all broken, full, mystifying. Observant, sublime prose.' Tara June Winch, author of The Yield
'Wild, tender, fatalistically hilarious, and utterly enthralling. Allinson's complex insight and love for the people of this novel renders them as real as difficult kin and just as inescapable.' Josephine Rowe, author of Here Until August
MILES ALLINSON is a writer and an artist, and the author of the multi award-winning novel Fever of Animals. He lives in Melbourne.
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- This is the new book from the award winning writer of Fever of Animals. There are three different stories – one taking place in present-day Melbourne, the second set in India with the Bhagwan Rajneesh, and third set in the not-too-distant future. The stories are linked: a man searches for answers in explaining his father’s suicide; the father joins the Bhagwan ashram searching for answers; and a daughter reaches out to her father. Allinson has a wonderful way of keeping the reader engaged, but also making us work. There are no easy answers here — questions posed always seem just out of reach of being reconciled by the character asking them. Both political and personal, this makes Allinson a writer to keep an eye on. Greg Waldron
